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We analyse the Secondary Whisky Market
Mon, 18 Mar 2019 23:54:27 +0000 en-GB
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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.1https://www.whiskystats.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/cropped-Favicon-top1-32x32.pngWhiskystatshttps://www.whiskystats.net
3232The Whiskystats Price Update for February 2019https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-february-2019/
https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-february-2019/#respondMon, 18 Mar 2019 23:54:27 +0000https://www.whiskystats.net/?p=18141Our major market indices soar up again. Several members of our Fab50 collection achieve new record prices. Game of Thrones arrived on the secondary market but winter is gone, as this is our price update for February 2019! This month we observed more than 13.000 bottles of whisky changing their owner. On average 420 Euros... Read More

]]>Our major market indices soar up again. Several members of our Fab50 collection achieve new record prices. Game of Thrones arrived on the secondary market but winter is gone, as this is our price update for February 2019!
This month we observed more than 13.000 bottles of whisky changing their owner. On average 420 Euros have been paid and no less than 7.000 whiskies in our database experienced a price change this month. With 113 trades the Macallan Concept Number 1 was by far the most traded release of them all. These prices averaged to around 150 Euros. We count five Macallan releases among the ten most traded whiskies of February 2019.
But let’s have a look at the broader picture. Our major market index, the Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI), gained 5,3% and now stands at 207,2 index points. This means that the 500 historically most traded whiskies gained 5,3% in value this month. This brings the WWI very close to its all-time peak of 210,7 index points which it reached just in October 2018.

Fabulous Turnaround

Due to the methodology we are using to calculate the WWI you will never find a real whisky collection that will perform just like this index. The reason is quite simple. The list of whiskies that contribute to the WWI can change each month. That is why we also tend to look at what we call the Fabulous 50, a hand selected collection of 50 very rare and very collectable releases.
From August 2018 to January 2019 the Fab50 collection lost almost 12% in value. After the total collection worth increased by 24% from May to August 2018 this seemed like a reasonable price consolidation. And now, in February 2019, we see an incredible increase of 11,7%! The whole Fab50 collection is now worth almost 123.000 Euros. So naturally the question arises of which bottles caused this turnaround?
One of the major drivers is the Karuizawa Single Cask 6426. Once released to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Whisky Exchange this japanese single malt traded for more than 17.000 Euros this month. Other Fab50 members with a decent price increase are the Glenlivet 25yo Royal Wedding and the Talisker 25yo 2001 Release. It was only in autumn 2018 when the Talisker was regularly traded for around 650 Euros. Now, only a couple of months later, the price tag reached almost 900 Euros.

Other Ups & Downs

When looking at the top value-gainer of February 2019 we see the Compass Box Orangerie (375ml release) leading this list. It was back in August 2014 where a very reasonable 41 Euros were paid for this Compass Box expression. The 280 Euros achieved at Whisky Auctioneer equal a 580% increase in value for this orange infused whisky. Also among the top value-gainer of this month is the Arran Single Cask 1968 release. In contrast to the Orangerie this Arran realized its 520% value increase within three months. It was in November 2018 when this whisky traded for only 100 Euros. For some reason a bidder at Scotch Whisky Auctions was willing to pay 650 Euros. Why we cannot tell, but we strongly recommend to consider a Whiskystats membership…
Of course there were also some value-losers this month. One prominent example is the Lagavulin Game of Thrones (House Lennister) edition. But actually it is not so much the 68 Euros this whisky achieved this month. It is the 260 and 450 Euros from the previous months that catch our attention. We regularly observe horrendous prices for new releases, but why someone would pay so much when the whisky is available in pretty much every online shop we cannot tell.

]]>https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-february-2019/feed/0The Whiskystats Annual Report of 2018 (I/II)https://www.whiskystats.net/market-analysis/the-whiskystats-annual-report-of-2018-i-ii/
https://www.whiskystats.net/market-analysis/the-whiskystats-annual-report-of-2018-i-ii/#respondMon, 04 Mar 2019 23:27:19 +0000https://www.whiskystats.net/?p=17721Name any measure and chances are high the whisky auction market of 2018 broke the record. More bottles traded, more money spent. Prices are increasing too, especially for the most rare and collectable releases. In a nutshell, the secondary whisky market shows no sign of slowing down. More and more people use the chance to... Read More

]]>Name any measure and chances are high the whisky auction market of 2018 broke the record. More bottles traded, more money spent. Prices are increasing too, especially for the most rare and collectable releases.
In a nutshell, the secondary whisky market shows no sign of slowing down. More and more people use the chance to buy and sell their whisky on auctions. On the tip of the iceberg we see bottles being sold for more than 100.000 Euros a piece and even the 1.000.000 (yes million) Euro barrier was touched for the first time in 2018. But all of that you could have heard from other resources too. We at Whiskystats want to dig deeper into this ever-growing pile of whisky data. Is the market changing or just growing? Did prices for the different segments alter equally? And, most importantly, how did your very personal whisky collection performed last year?

Note: Compared to our previous annual reports some figures may have changed. The reason for this is obvious. During the last year we added WhiskyAuctioneer.com to our watch list. In addition, we now track prices for Blends, Bourbons and Ryes too!

The Market Growth

So first let’s get the obvious figures out-of-the-way. In 2018 we observed no less than 123.000 bottles of whisky being sold on auctions. Compared to 2017 this equals a 19,5% increase in the number of trades. Yes the growth rate decreased compared to the 26% in 2017 and almost 40% in 2016. But still, it is quite a significant growth. Closely tied to the sheer number of trades is of course the total trading volume, i.e. the money flowing around on the market. In 2018 we observed more than 51,5 Mio. Euros being spent on whisky auctions. And here comes the interesting bit. Compared to 2017 this equals a 37% increase. As we have seen above, the number of trades only increased by 19,5%. So either prices did increase or more of the valuable bottles have been traded. So what is the most obvious way to put the number of trades and the total trading volume into relation? Yes, the good old average price per bottle. In 2018 the mean price per bottle was 416 Euros. In 2017 this figure was at 363 Euros and in 2016 we saw 321 Euros being paid on average. So quite a significant increase there.

But wait, the mean is prone to be skewed by extreme observations, and didn’t we say that prices at the very top of the iceberg exploded? So let´s have a look at the median instead. The median price per auctioned bottle of 2018 was 156 Euros. This means that 50% of the whiskies traded for less than 156 Euros. The median price of 2017 was 156 Euros too and the median price of 2016 was 154 Euros. So in fact not much movement there. Yes, prices at the top reached new spheres, but at the same time more and more affordable whisky is being traded too!

The Market Data Sources

What we miss most about other market analysis we find on the web is that hardly anybody explains the data her or his report is based on. At Whiskystats we currently process the prices of three auctioneers. These are WhiskyAuction.com (WA), WhiskyAuctioneer.com (WAE) and ScotchWhiskyAuctions.com (SWA). And yes, we do have plans to add other auctioneers. In addition we restrict our attention to single bottle lots. Once you become a Whiskystats member (for free), you can even search our whisky database on your own! Traditionally, the whisky auction market is most active in the late months of October, November and December. Also unsurprisingly we observed the fewest trades during the summer months, even more so as WA takes one month off during the hottest time of the year. You will also notice that SWA accounts for the most trades we process. So in total we currently cover the two major UK auctioneers (SWA and WAE) as well as the pretty much one and only mainland european based whisky auctioneer (WA).

The Market Composition

It might be quite obvious that single malt whiskies dominate the secondary whisky market. But to what degree? And did things change over time? To find out we visualized the relative share of trades of the whisky types we differ in the below graphic. The areas are stacked on top of each other and sum up to one (or 100%). These monthly observations reach all the way back to January 2013. Back in early 2013 about 93% of the auctioned whisky bottles were single malts. Blends accounted for roughly 5% while Bourbons and Ryes only had a 2% market share. More than five years later things have changed a bit. Blends almost doubled their share now accounting for 9% of all trades. Almost 5% of the bottles nowadays are Bourbons or Ryes. But yes, single malts are still dominating the scene with a 85% share of the market.

The Market and Age

Another way of segmenting the market is of course the age. The time the spirit spends in a cask is a major indicator for the value of a whisky bottle. Whether this should be the case is the topic of a whole other discussion. The same is true for the rise of the so-called NAS (No Age Statement) releases. Anyway, let’s have a look at what the market thinks about this. To do so we clustered the whiskies into six different age classes ranging from NAS (no information about the length of maturation) to 30+ years. In the above plot we again stacked the relative market shares (measured by the number of traded bottles) on top of each other. By the end of 2018 nearly 30% of the traded whiskies lack an age statement. Back in 2013 NAS whiskies only represented about 20% of the market. So yes indeed, NAS is on the rise on the secondary market too! Turning to those releases having an age statement we see that only around 5% are 10 years or younger. A quarter of the market consists of whiskies aged 20 years or more. And this did not change over the past six years. In this second visualization we measured the market share by the trading volume. Unsurprisingly the picture has changed. The oldest segment with 30+ years of maturation now accounts for 30% of the money spent. And while the market share with respect to the number of trades stayed constant at around 6-7%, this figure increased from 18% in early 2013 to the mentioned 30% nowadays. So prices for the oldest releases massively increased. A completely different behaviour is observed for NAS bottlings. While the market share with respect to the number of trades increased from 20% to 30%, the share of the trading volume pretty much stayed the same. Finally we want to compare the annual median prices of these age clusters. Most obviously it was the oldest releases which experienced the highest gain. Back in 2013 half of the 30+yo bottles were sold for less than 360 Euros. In the following years this median price constantly increased, except for 2016. In 2018 this measure then reached 800 Euros. For those releases with an age statement between 20 and 30 years the median price even declined in 2018 after it grew from 200 to 300 Euros in the previous years.

The Market and ABV

Out of curiosity we repeat the same analysis for the alcohol level. Again we split all whiskies into six different clusters, this time ranging from less than 42% to above 60% ABV. In below visualization we see that cask strength whisky (above 50%) accounts for around 40% of all the trades we observe. It also seems like this hasn´t changed much over the past years. This seems true for all the clusters. So looks like the market composition with respect to the alcohol level and measured by the number of traded bottles has not changed much. Again we change the measure to the share of trading volume. Now we see that those whiskies with 55% or more alcohol gained market shares from 2013 to 2015 and lost market shares ever since. At the peak around 40% of the money was spent for those releases. In 2018 it was only around 27%. In contrast the releases with an alcohol level between 42 and 45% are on the rise. While the number of trades stayed pretty much constant (see above), the relative market share with respect to the trading volume increased from around 15% in 2015 to almost 25% in late 2018. A quick look at the annual median prices reveals some other interesting insights. For 60% or more ABV the median price increased from 170 Euros in 2013 to 260 Euros in 2017 and then dropped to 190 Euros in 2018. In addition our observations from above for the 42-45% cluster are confirmed. The median price for these releases constantly climbed over the past six years. In 2018 half of the bottles with 42 to 45% of alcohol traded for more than 170 Euros. In the upcoming second part of our Annual Report of 2018 we continue this analysis by having a look at the vintages too. Then we will also focus on the different distilleries and of course take a look at how our market indices performed in the last year.

]]>https://www.whiskystats.net/market-analysis/the-whiskystats-annual-report-of-2018-i-ii/feed/0We do Blendshttps://www.whiskystats.net/market-analysis/we-do-blends/
https://www.whiskystats.net/market-analysis/we-do-blends/#respondThu, 21 Feb 2019 23:28:43 +0000https://www.whiskystats.net/?p=17629Blended whiskies like Hibiki, Compass Box and Johnnie Walker are now tracked by Whiskystats. The secondary market for these brands is growing strongly too. Here is our introduction of blends! The addition of blends marks the next milestone for the Whiskystats project. We now track prices of around 35.000 different whiskies in our database. For... Read More

]]>Blended whiskies like Hibiki, Compass Box and Johnnie Walker are now tracked by Whiskystats. The secondary market for these brands is growing strongly too. Here is our introduction of blends!
The addition of blends marks the next milestone for the Whiskystats project. We now track prices of around 35.000 different whiskies in our database. For these whiskies we observed 485.000 trades. The unique thing about Whiskystats is that we do not only collect the raw price information, but we map them to the respective whiskies too. This is what enables you to track the value of your personal collections. And this is what enables us to analyze the movements of the market.

The Market

But first let’s have a look at the sheer number of trades. On the three auction platforms we currently track we see that the number of sold blends is on a constant rise. About three years ago we observed around 500 bottles per month. Since October 2018 the number of blends traded per round of auctions averaged to more than 1.000 bottles!
This growth perfectly aligns with the overall growth of the whisky auction market. The relative share of blends traded each month is pretty constant and lies somewhere between 7% to 10%. About the same is true for the observed trading volume, i.e. the summed prices of all the registered trades. Here the relative share of blends roughly lies between 3% and 6%. Consequently, the traded blends are cheaper on average than their single malt and bourbon counterparts.
It was back in 2015 when the total worth of all traded blends on the auction houses we track jumped above 50.000 Euros per month for the first time. In 2016 we reached 100.000 Euros quite regularly. Less than a year ago this figure touched the 200.000 Euros threshold and only in November 2018 we almost reached 300.000 Euros in a single round of auctions.

The Brands

We added no less than 171 different brands of blended whiskies. Thereby we differ the most different bottlings for Johnnie Walker and Suntory. To find out which are the most traded brands, we of course simply count the number of price observations. The Top 10 of the most traded blended whisky brands are displayed below. When it comes to the number of traded bottles Johnnie Walker is the major brand for blended whisky. Since 2011 we observed almost 7.000 Johnnie Walker bottles changing their owner. The second most traded blend brand is Hibiki with little less than 4.000 price observations. On the places follow Ballantine´s and Compass Box with each around 1.600 trades. The Top 5 is completed by the Famous Grouse.

Outstanding Blends

We now have a look at the most outstanding bottlings on the market. For this, there are of course many different criteria to apply. So at first we take a look at those expressions of blended whisky which have been traded the most so far. With more than 750 trades the Hibiki 17yo is the single most traded blend in our database. Prices climbed from below 100 Euros back in the year of 2014 to a decent 400 Euros per bottle nowadays. Interestingly, it seems like in May 2018 bidders on all markets agreed simultaneously that this whisky should trade for twice the price it did before.
Also its little brother, the Hibiki 12yo, is highly sought after. Almost 500 trades saw the prices for this twelve year-old expression rise from 60 Euros to now more than 250 Euros. Other blends with around 450 trades are the Nikka Gold & Gold (Samurai), the Taketsuru 17yo Pure Malt and yet another Hibiki, the Hibiki 21yo.

We now turn our attention to the most expensive blends. Surprise, surprise, we stumble upon the next Hibiki releases. Both the Hibiki Arita Decanter and the Hibiki Kutani Decanter currently trade for around 16.000 to 17.000 Euros.
Also not the best bargain, but with a hefty decrease in hammer prices, we find the Johnnie Walker Jenson Button Signature Blend. The first price observation we made was back in May 2016 when 17.000 Euros have been paid for this whisky. In 2017 and 2018 we observed this whisky for three more times. Those trades ranged from 10.000 Euros to 11.000 Euros.

This leads us to the question of which blends experienced the highest increase in value. The list of the top performing blended whiskies is completely dominated by Compass Box. Bronze, Silver and Gold all go to releases of this infamous scotch whisky blender. There is the Compass Box Hedonism (1st Edition). Prior to August 2015 this first Hedonism release traded for less than 200 Euros. Then this whisky disappeared from the auctions we observed only to reappear two months ago, in December 2018. But then it sold for more than 1.100 Euros leaving its owners with a 660% increase in value within three years.
Then there is the Compass Box Canto Cask 50. Once traded for less than 100 Euros, now selling for almost twenty times that price. In November 2018 a bidder at ScotchWhiskyAuctions.com was willing to pay almost 2.000 Euros. We observed a similar price development for the Compass Box Eleuthera (Single Marrying Cask). 50 Euros in July 2011 and 720 Euros in October 2017 equal a 1.340% increase in value within seven years.

]]>https://www.whiskystats.net/market-analysis/we-do-blends/feed/0The Whiskystats Price Update for January 2019https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-january-2019/
https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-january-2019/#commentsTue, 12 Feb 2019 00:12:39 +0000https://www.whiskystats.net/?p=17492The Whiskystats Whisky Index is still under pressure. Islay bottlings overtake Speyside and the Top 10 whisky distilleries move closer together. Here is our price update for January 2019! In the first round of auctions of 2019 we observed more than 11.000 bottles of single malts and bourbons that changed their owner. On average... Read More

The Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI) is going through tough times at the moment. From July to October 2018 the WWI reached new all-time records going as high as 210 index points. It was only in November when it dropped by more than 6% within a single month. In December it then recovered to jump above the 200 points again. And now it dropped by 2,5% once more. So it will be quite interesting to find out where the journey in 2019 will lead to!

Region Movements

So lets have a look at our indices for the major scottish whisky regions. In the below graphic we simply put those indices side by side to directly compare the regions with each other. We notice that the most traded Islay bottlings gained about 3,5% in value both in December 2018 and January 2019. In the same time, the 100 most traded Speyside whiskies lost more than 3%. So after 18 months Islay claims back the title of the best performing scotch whisky region!

From September 2017 to November 2018 the most traded Campbeltown whisky cumulated a gain in value of around 25%. Since then however, our region index for Campbeltown lost around 5,5%. Still, in our scotch region ranking Campbeltown clearly sepperates itself from the Islands region.

Distillery Ups & Downs

When we take a look at our monthly updated distillery ranking we notice that all of our top 5 distilleries lost points while all of the remaining top 10 distilleries gained points! Here we see that the 100 most traded Macallans lost another 5% in value which is of course also a key driver of the above mentioned loss of our Speyside region index. Since September 2018 our Macallan index fell by 15% in value! Quite obviously the Grand Macallan Price Rally came to a full stop there.

Among the highest losses we see the japanese distillery of Hanyu too. In last month, the historically most traded Hanyu bottlings lost 7% in value. At the same time, the most traded Dalmore bottlings continue to gain value. Since December 2017 our Dalmore index gained more than 30% and in January 2019 alone almost 10%. Even among our top listed distilleries this is an outstanding performance which even helped Dalmore overtake distilleries like Ardbeg and Port Ellen in our ranking.

We now want to back these findings we got from our indices by some of the price observations that drove those market movements. For this we picked out some of the Dalmore bottlings that caused the Dalmore index to rise, as well as some of the Hanyu whiskies that pulled down our Hanyu index.

When looking for a Dalmore value gainer you will probably stumble upon the Dalmore Ceti. The Ceti is now trading for around 3.000 Euros with single price observations almost reaching 4.000 Euros. Other examples for some Dalmores with substantial value increases are the Dalmore 40yo Astrum and this Dalmore 30yo (1966) Single Cask expression.

]]>https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-january-2019/feed/2The Whiskystats Price Update for December 2018https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-december-2018/
https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-december-2018/#respondFri, 18 Jan 2019 00:10:10 +0000https://www.whiskystats.net/?p=17177Another very busy round of auctions went by. Our Fabulous Fifty continue to consolidate in value after their Summer 2018 rush. A North Port bottling is the top value gainer of the month. Here is our Price Update for December 2018!December 2018 is the fourth consecutive month in which we observed more than 10.000 bottles... Read More

]]>Another very busy round of auctions went by. Our Fabulous Fifty continue to consolidate in value after their Summer 2018 rush. A North Port bottling is the top value gainer of the month. Here is our Price Update for December 2018!December 2018 is the fourth consecutive month in which we observed more than 10.000 bottles of whisky being auctioned. Due to these new observations 5.300 whiskies in our database experienced a price change. With 200 trades, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) made it among the top trading independent bottlers of this month. Our bottler indices show that the most traded SMWS bottlings gained 15% in value since May 2018. Also our major market index, the Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI), recovered from its November 2018 dip.

In December 2018 the historically 500 most traded whiskies gained 2% in value. This helped the WWI to climb above 200 index points again. A look at our monthly updated distillery ranking unveils that our Macallan index continues to lose ground. In December 2018 the 100 historically most traded Macallan bottlings lost 3,5% in value. This caused Macallan to drop to position four in our ranking, now behind Karuizawa, Rosebank and Hanyu.

The Fabulous Fifty

The Fabulous Fifty (Fab50) are a hand selected collection of fifty iconic whiskies. As representatives of very rare and collectable whiskies we track the value of these collection in our Fab50 index. From May to August 2018 we observed a dramatic increase in value which brought the total worth of this 50 bottles of whisky to around 125.000 Euros.

However, since August 2018 this total worth of our Fab50 dropped to around 114.000 Euros. So which of the fifty whiskies caused this increase and drop? On our Fab50 index site you find a listing of all the included whiskies. Here we picked out two bottles which perfectly represent the movement of the above displayed Fab50 index.

First off is the Karuizawa (1984) Cask 3663 release. In late 2017 and early 2018 this japanese single malt was traded for around 3.000 Euros or less. Then, in August 2018, a bidder at ScotchWhiskyAuctions.com (SWA) was willing to pay almost 4.000 Euros. Now, again at SWA, the price dropped back to around 3.000 Euros. So this precious Karuizawa bottling was one of the main drivers of our Fab50 index.

But the above mentioned Karuizawa was not the only bottle that experienced such a price development. Take the Macallan Royal Marriage 1981 release. In the first half of 2018 this whisky was regularly traded for less than 4.000 Euros. The prices quickly increased to 5.000 Euros and above. The peak was reached in August 2018 when we observed a trade for 5.400 Euros. Now, in December 2018, the price tag dropped to 5.000 Euros. So this Macallan bottling also perfectly resembles the overall movements of our Fab50 index.

Outstanding Trades

Finally we want to point out some outstanding trades of this latest round of whisky auctions. On top of the value gainers of the month is the North Port 19yo (1979) Rare Malts Selection. It was only back in March 2018 when you could buy one of these bottles for around 750 Euros. In December 2018, a bidder at WhiskyAuctioneer.com (WAE) was willing to pay 3.300 Euros for this whisky. This equals an almost 350% increase in value within less than a year.

Another interesting value gainer is the Linkwood 5yo (1971) release. Until January 2017 this Speyside single malt was traded for around 100 Euros. The latest price observations saw 600 Euros being paid for this whisky.

The list of the most traded whiskies of December 2018 is dominated by Macallan. With 104 bottles traded the Macallan Aera release is the single most traded whisky of the month. On the places follow the Macallan Classic Cut 2018 Release (90 trades), the Macallan Edition No.4 (57) and the Macallan Edition No.3 (54). Note that when we determine the “most traded” bottlings to calculate our indices, it is not the raw number of trades but the number of different auctions the whiskies appear in that we take into account. So the decrease in our Macallan distillery index is not caused by these recent, heavily traded but relatively cheap releases!

]]>https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-december-2018/feed/0Three Years of Whiskystatshttps://www.whiskystats.net/general/three-years-of-whiskystats/
https://www.whiskystats.net/general/three-years-of-whiskystats/#commentsSat, 29 Dec 2018 23:11:23 +0000https://www.whiskystats.net/?p=16598It has been more than three years now since our whisky database went online for the first time. And like whisky itself, Whiskystats continues to mature over time. Here is a small recap of the current state and what is about to come! It was in late 2015 when the decision was made to make... Read More

]]>It has been more than three years now since our whisky database went online for the first time. And like whisky itself, Whiskystats continues to mature over time. Here is a small recap of the current state and what is about to come!
It was in late 2015 when the decision was made to make the Whiskystats database publicly accessible. When looking at the below figures, it seems like it was about time for a project like this one. And Whiskystats came to stay. The secondary market for rare and collectable whisky is growing strongly and the need for an independent market observer is obvious. More and more people appreciate the possibility to acquire long gone bottlings on auctions. As prices tend to increase, whisky is also seen as an alternative investment possibility. But whatever your reasons are for participating in this market, being well informed is always a key advantage. And this is where Whiskystats comes into play.

More Data

At the time of writing this article we are currently tracking scotch and japanese single malts as well as united states bourbon whiskey. We differ more than 30.000 different whiskies in our database. For these whiskies we observed well above 420.000 trades dating all the way back to the year of 2011. Just recently the number of price observations we make each month jumped above 10.000. Considering this, and the fact that we soon also add blended whisky to our watch list, we expect to reach half a million (!) trade records within the next couple of months.

More Members

Still we do not spend any money on advertising Whiskystats. Still the Whiskystats user base is constantly growing. Just recently we reached 3.000 registered Whiskystats members. All in all this users manage more than 2.500 digital whisky collections on our platform. In these collections they track the value of more than 240.000 bottles of whisky. For us this is simply amazing and showcases the demand on a service like Whiskystats.

More Attention

As more and more people get involved in the secondary whisky market, the need for some rigorous analysis of this market is growing too. But for analysing the market one needs to have market data. So people start referencing Whiskystats. We here want to point out some of the whisky content creators that make use of our results. This list is by no means exhaustive and excuses go out to everyone that we miss out.

We especially appreciate the regular postings on Whiskyexperts, an austrian based web-portal (like Whiskystats) dedicated to collect all whisky related news and stories. As Whiskyexperts is german only, this is for sure a reason why Whiskystats usage is strong among the german speaking countries.

Also the well renowned Forbes magazine makes use of our analysis. In their Food & Drinks section our breakdowns of the latest rounds of auctions were used to illustrate the growing interest in collectable whisky. Especially our analysis of the recent market movements that show that Karuizawa is the most collectable whisky out there caught their attention.
But Whiskystats also appears in classical print media. Here we want to point out the (also german) whisky magazine Der Whiskybotschafter. There, Ralph L. Warth, founder of the Rare Limited Whisky LLC and author of Liquid Gold – Investing successfully in whisky, regularly references to our market observations.

And we actually can not count the numerous whisky bloggers and forums around the world. Cheers to you! Here we have to highlight Malthound.co.uk, an U.K. whisky and spirits blog. Malthound is the first to gain direct access to the Whiskystats database. On Malthound you will find a side-widget displaying the latest movements of our Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI). Also the whole index is embedded on the Malthound whisky-index page. For this, Malthound directly accesses our data through an API. This was our first endevour to providing our data as a service and we certainly have plans to build up on this! This directly leads us to the things that are about to come.

More Ideas

The most important thing when talking about the Whiskystats project is that we are not done yet. Not at all! As many of you know, the year of 2018 was dedicated to completely rebuilding the technical foundation of our database. As a result of this we were able to add bourbon whiskeys pretty easily. And as mentioned above, we will soon start tracking blends too.
But that is not all. Beside of steadily adding more and more whiskies to our database we will also continue distilling the most out of this vast amount of information. Until now we only have scratched the surface of what one could do with our market data. We do not want to spoil too much at the moment, but all of these future tools will be clearly targeted at gaining more insight into the market and making it easier to access this information.

So long story short, we are very much looking forward to the year that comes!

]]>https://www.whiskystats.net/general/three-years-of-whiskystats/feed/2The Whiskystats Price Update for November 2018https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-november-2018/
https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-november-2018/#respondTue, 18 Dec 2018 09:06:56 +0000https://www.whiskystats.net/?p=16545For the first time in Whiskystats history we observed more than 12.000 bottles of whisky traded within a single month! Seems like the prices suffered from this vast quantity of offerings though. Especially our Macallan index continues to lose ground. To be very precise we observed 12.888 trades of scotch, japanese and united states whisky... Read More

]]>For the first time in Whiskystats history we observed more than 12.000 bottles of whisky traded within a single month! Seems like the prices suffered from this vast quantity of offerings though. Especially our Macallan index continues to lose ground.
To be very precise we observed 12.888 trades of scotch, japanese and united states whisky in November 2018. Only 600 of those were made for Bourbon and Rye whisky. So this new record figure is no child of the fact that we recently started to track U.S. whiskeys too! In below chart we visualize the number of trades we made during the last twelve months. For each month we divided the different auctioneers we currently track.
It was only in September this year when we observed more than 10.000 bottles for the first time. In October this figure jumped above 10.500 and now the new record breaking November round of auctions with almost thirteen hundred trades. And of course also the total trading volume is as high as it never was before. For all the trades we observed in last month the paid prices sum-up to a staggering 5,86 million Euros!

WWI Drop

So what happens to the prices when the number of offered bottles rises? According to our Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI) they drop, and they drop quite significantly. In this round of auctions, the historically 500 most traded whiskies lost 6,2% in value. This sent our WWI from 210,7 to 197,64 index points. The sudden drop is very comparable to what we have seen in March this year when the WWI also lost around 6% within a single month. So what happened?
For this we first take a look at the top five distilleries in our monthly updated distillery ranking. There we see that the most traded Karuizawa bottlings even gained value by around 2,5%. The indices of Rosebank and Hanyu moved slightly and the most traded Yamazaki bottlings lost 1,8% in value. And then there is Macallan. In October 2018 the most traded Macallan bottlings lost 2,4% in value. Now, in the latest round of auctions, the most traded Macallans even lost more than 5% in value.
But actually it is not only Macallan bottlings that experienced a decrease in price. Also our Bowmore (-3,8%), Brora (-5,2%) and Port Ellen (-2,4%) indices lost quite a bit. And there are many more which you all find in our distillery ranking. We even have a new taillight of our ranking. Our Wolfburn index dropped from 47 to now only 42,2 index points meaning that Kilchoman, which dropped from 45,4 to 43,5, now takes the 77th place in our ranking. Last but not least also our Fabulous Fifty selection of whiskies lost 3,3% in value. This hand selected collection of fifty secondary whisky market legends is now worth 114.438 Euros.

Value Losers

Instead of looking at our summarizing indices we now want to point out some of those bottles that caused the above mentioned index movements. FIrst-off is the Macallan Archival Series. In this series we find three expressions. Price observations for the Macallan Archival Folio 1 are displayed below. We see that in September 2018 prices at WhiskyAuctioneer.com almost reached 3.000 Euros. Similar to our Macallan index however, in the months following the average prices dropped to 2.400 Euros in November 2018.
Also the Macallan Archival Folio 2 experienced a comparable development. The average monthly prices dropped from 1.500 Euros to 1.300 Euros in November 2018. Same is true for the Macallan Archival Folio 3. Here the prices dropped from 2.300 Euros in September to 1.880 Euros in November 2018.

Another bottling that contributed to our Macallan index is the Macallan 15yo (1990) Easter Elchies Seasonal Selection. During the Macallan Price Rally of 2017 prices for one of these once existing 585 bottles climbed from 800 Euros to almost 3.400 Euros within fifteen months. Then, in spring of 2018, they dropped back to around 2.000 Euros where they level in ever since.
So it seems like what we are currently observing for Macallan is the aftermath of the dramatic price increases during the last years. Many of the very collectable Macallan bottlings experienced drastic gains in value. The two major drops in our Macallan index happened in February/March and October/November 2018 and the two examples stated above perfectly depict what was going on. Prices for Macallan start to consolidate, at least for the time being.

As stated above, Macallan was not the only distillery index that lost ground in November 2018. Our Laphroaig index for example went down by 1,92%. One example for the whiskies that drove this index movement is the Laphroaig 12yo (1994) Feis Ile 2006 bottling.
In September 2017 prices for this Islay single malt reached 1.000 Euros at WhiskyAuction.com. From September 2017 to September 2018 this whisky was traded at all the auctioneers we track and all of the prices fell in the range of 850 to 1.000 Euros. And then the November round of auctions came along and we observed some truly stunning trades. At ScotchWhiskyAuctions.com some bidder was willing to pay almost 1.200 Euros. At the same time, at WhiskyAuction.com two price observations averaged to around 600 Euros. This equals a solid 100% difference in prices between the two different marketplaces!

]]>https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-november-2018/feed/0We do Bourbons (and some Rye)https://www.whiskystats.net/market-analysis/we-do-bourbons-and-some-rye/
https://www.whiskystats.net/market-analysis/we-do-bourbons-and-some-rye/#respondFri, 07 Dec 2018 17:44:14 +0000https://www.whiskystats.net/?p=16360We finally reach across the big pond as we now start tracking secondary market prices for Bourbon whiskeys. The number of trades is steadily increasing while prices not always did. Here is our introduction of Bourbons (and some Rye)! When we analyse the secondary market for Bourbon whiskeys we of course have to keep in... Read More

]]>We finally reach across the big pond as we now start tracking secondary market prices for Bourbon whiskeys. The number of trades is steadily increasing while prices not always did. Here is our introduction of Bourbons (and some Rye)!
When we analyse the secondary market for Bourbon whiskeys we of course have to keep in mind that all the auctioneers we currently track are based in Europe. So in fact this is an analysis of the european market´s take on the United States whiskeys. However, when it comes to trading rare and collectable whiskies the european market, and especially UK, are most dominant (with Asia catching up steadily). Furthermore, many collectors around the globe rely on european auctioneers as no local auctioneer is available or supplies such a big range.

Growing Market

From January 2011 to November 2018 we observed 18.449 U.S. whiskeys traded on the auction houses we track. Out of this, 16.635 were Bourbons and 1.814 are Ryes. In below graph we visualize the number of trades per month since 2011.
Obviously the number of traded U.S. whiskeys is steadily increasing. It was only back in 2014 were we started to observe more than 100 bottles traded each month on a regular basis. In late 2016 this number climbed above 400 for the first time. In the last month´s round of auctions we even observed more than 600 bottles traded. Sure, compared to scotch single malts, where we observe thousands of trades each month, this number is comparably humble, but it is increasing significantly nevertheless!
Same is, of course, true for the total trading volume per month. Since 2017 the sum of all prices paid each month for U.S. whiskey consistently lies beyond 100.000 Euros. In some months the total worth of traded bottles even exceeded the 175.000 Euros threshold.

Major Brands

So what are the major brands when it comes to U.S. whiskey? Our approach to answer this question is to have a look at the number of bottles that were traded. So in below visualization we show you those ten brands for which we observed the most prices. In total we currently list 112 different United States whiskey brands in our database.
By far the most trades are observed for Jack Daniel´s. Around 2.200 auctioned bottles equal a 12% market share when it comes to U.S. whiskeys traded on auctions. On the places there follow Four Roses, Wild Turkey and Pappy Van Winkle. When it comes to the infamous Van Winkle whiskey one has to note that we treat Van Winkle, Pappy van Winkle and Old Rip Van Winkle separately in this analysis.

We now turn our attention to the most traded American whiskies in our database. With more than 300 price observations the Pappy Van Winkle 20yo Family Reserve was traded more often than any other Bourbon or Rye. First prices come form early 2014 when this whisky was sold for around 450 Euros. Then prices climbed pretty fast and are now standing at around 1.500 Euros per bottle.
The second most traded Bourbon we track is the Pappy Van Winkle 15yo Family Reserve which currently trades for around 1.000 Euros. Surprisingly the third most trade Bourbon is the Pappy Van Winkle 23yo Family Reserve for which the market asks for 2.000 Euros. With 249 trades we finally find a non Van Winkle Bourbon on place four. For the W.L. Weller 12yo we find 249 price observations which currently settle in at a modest 100 Euros.

Finally we want to find out which of these Bourbons and Ryes experienced the highest increase in value. Back in the year of 2011, so no more than 9 years ago, the highest bidding price for the Old Weller Original 107 Proof was 44 Euros. In October 2018 the winning bid for this Bourbon whisky was 864 Euros. This equals a 1860% increase in value.
Another strong value gainer is the A.H. Hirsch 16yo (1974) Reserve. Once available for less than 100 Euros the highest price observations flown as high as 1.900 Euros. Also the Old Rip Van Winkle 12yo Old Time Rye gained value significantly. The 1.200 Euros from September 2017 equal a 1100% increase in value compared to the 100 Euros from October 2011.

Bourbon Index

To summarize the price development for all the Bourbons we have in our database we of course use our proven method of calculating an index. This means that each month we are determining what the historically 100 most traded Bourbons were and then calculate their change in value. These monthly changes in value then define our index movements.
We see that from 2014 an onward, when the number of traded Bourbons started to increase (see above), our Bourbon index steadily climbed. Until mid of 2016 it reached an index value of around 140. In this two and half-year period our Bourbon index gained more than 70%. However, from there onward we observe steadily decreasing index values. By late 2018 our Bourbon index stays at around 105 points. We already know that especially from 2016 and onward more and more Bourbons appeared on the market. Quite obviously some of the most traded of those bottles are not very sought after by the secondary market.

]]>https://www.whiskystats.net/market-analysis/we-do-bourbons-and-some-rye/feed/0The Whiskystats Price Update for October 2018https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-october-2018/
https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-october-2018/#commentsThu, 15 Nov 2018 23:10:57 +0000https://www.whiskystats.net/?p=16117The latest round of auctions was record-breaking in many ways. In addition Brora and Clynelish attract some attention while Campbeltown is closing the gap.This is the Whiskystats price update for October 2018! Last month we observed 9.118 bottles of single malt whisky getting a new owner. In exchange no less than 4,37 Mio. EUR were... Read More

]]>The latest round of auctions was record-breaking in many ways. In addition Brora and Clynelish attract some attention while Campbeltown is closing the gap.This is the Whiskystats price update for October 2018!
Last month we observed 9.118 bottles of single malt whisky getting a new owner. In exchange no less than 4,37 Mio. EUR were transferred. For comparison, in October 2017 we observed 8.500 trades for around 3,2 Mio. EUR. As a matter of fact, never before did we observe so many trades and such a high trading volume within a single round of auctions!

By far the most traded single malt was the Highland Park The Dolphins release. In October 2018 alone we observed 115 bottles traded. The prices averaged to 64 EUR. The most expensive trades of course belong to the Macallan 50yo 2018 Release. At ScotchWhiskyAuction.com (SWA) this unicorn reached 69.800 EUR and at WhiskyAuctioneer.com (WAE) even 72.300 EUR!

WWI & Regions

So what about the historically 500 most traded single malts? They gained 1,6% in value and consequently our Whiskystats Whisky Index moved from 207,34 to 210,7 index points. Once again this marks an all-time peak for our major secondary market index.
So how does this break down to the different scotch single malt regions we distinguish? For each of these regions we determine the historically 100 most traded whiskies. The change in value of those bottlings then define the index movements. To get the most out of these indices make sure you correctly interpret those values by reading through the The Whiskystats Indices article.
So what do we see? Well, the historically 100 most traded Islay bottlings gained 3,8% in value which brings our Islay index above its February 2018 peak. We see that the Lowlands and the Highlands are still battling hard for the third place among the scotch whisky regions (from a whisky collector´s point of view). And we see that our Campbeltown index shows a pretty constant upward movement. From September 2017 to October 2018 it gained almost 26% leaving the Islands well behind and honestly aiming to break through the 150 point threshold.

Brora & Clynelish

Looking at our monthly updated distillery ranking we see that there was not a lot of movement within the top ten distilleries except Port Ellen taking back position eight from Ardbeg. Further down the list we see that the most traded Clynelish bottlings gained 13,4% in value last month. This brought Clynelish up two steps to now reside on place 24 out of 76. And also its sibling distillery Brora gained significantly as the value of the most traded Brora´s increased by 4,34%.
When we look at the indices of Brora and Clynelish side by side we notice that both gained significantly during the last couple of months. From April to October our Clynelish index went up by more than 30%. The same is true for Brora, where our index moved from 223 to 290 index points within the same six months period. To make these figures more accessible we picked out some of the whiskies that drive these indices.
Take the Brora 30yo (1972) Old & Rare from Douglas Laing to start with. The last trade came from one year ago in October 2017 when one of these 222 bottles was sold for 3.000 EUR. This month the price tag reached 5.100 EUR! But that is not the only Brora which gained significant value this month. The Brora 30yo 2009 Release is now trading for more than 1.200 EUR. And there are the Brora 22yo (1972) and the Brora 21yo (1977) from the Rare Malts Selection series. Both these bottlings reached new all-time record prices this month as they now trade for 8.100 EUR and 1.300 EUR respectively. And what about Clynelish?
For Clynelish we have another member of the Rare Malts Selection family that was driving the distillerie´s index this month. The Clynelish 24yo (1972) more than doubled in price since January 2018 as it was now sold for over 1.600 EUR. Another example for outstanding price observations is the Clynelish 29yo (1965). It was only last month when this whisky traded for 4.000 EUR. This month, a bidder at WAE was willing to pay well above 6.000 Euros! Same is true for the Clynelish 35yo (1971). Traded for 1.100 EUR last month this whisky now achieved 1.750 EUR.

Ups & Downs

So everything is shiny and all prices go up? Of course not. Take the Lagavulin 16yo Special Boat Service release. This whisky was sold at WAE in May 2018 for around 2.600 Euros. This month, at SWA, it only achieved 750 EUR. But then again, also at SWA it was sold for 1.300 EUR only in January this year. Seems like market participants do not get their head around what this whisky should be trading for.
Another, and probably more affordable, example for a whisky that got cheaper this month is the Bruichladdich 11yo (2003) Life is a Circus release. About half a year ago prices for this whisky were well above 200 EUR. Now it dropped to only 107 EUR.

]]>https://www.whiskystats.net/monthly-update/the-whiskystats-price-update-for-october-2018/feed/2Call for Blendshttps://www.whiskystats.net/general/call-for-blends/
https://www.whiskystats.net/general/call-for-blends/#commentsThu, 01 Nov 2018 12:35:51 +0000https://www.whiskystats.net/?p=15892On Whiskystats we will soon start to track price observations for blended whiskies too. We hereby invite you to tell us which brands are not to be missed. This is the call for blended whisky brands! While we started processing the price observations for Bourbon whiskeys it is time to look ahead in our Whiskystats... Read More

]]>On Whiskystats we will soon start to track price observations for blended whiskies too. We hereby invite you to tell us which brands are not to be missed. This is the call for blended whisky brands!
While we started processing the price observations for Bourbon whiskeys it is time to look ahead in our Whiskystats roadmap. As announced the next step will be to also include blended whiskies. While the major brands for blended whisky are quite obvious, we need your help to get a comprehensive overview. Below you find a list of the brands we currently intend to include. Please feel free to post your suggestions in the comments below. The list will be kept up-to-date.